Beckman, Brian The Physics of Racing

"I started this series in 1991 for my local racing club's printed newsletter. The web had just been born,
though the Internet was not yet public. Nonetheless, I distributed the articles over the Internet at that
time and they become reasonably well known, especially amongst the autocrossing community in the
US. The first 13 parts were written in 1991, so they contain some very dated ideas, such as using
Scheme for writing simulations. However, the entire series is presented here, as originally written.
Perhaps at some later time I will consolidate and update the series, but for now, I am focusing on
writing new parts. There are currently a number of 'live threads' in the discussion that I wish to pursue
at length.
My overall goal with the series is to present a fresh outlook on racing physics, understandable to the
technically inclined non-specialist. The problems I consider come from a variety of sources. Often,
they're motivated by computer simulation, and just as often they arise from competition experiences.
Some of the later articles get very technical, but I always try to balance conceptual discussion, which
everyone should be able to understand, with mathematical analysis, which might be of interest only to
specialists, and with numerical results, which, again, should be universally accessible.